As “activists,” Men’s Rights Activists seem to be good at only two things: harassing people, and flooding comment sections of websites with their endlessly repeated half-dozen talking points. On Reddit, for example, the local MRAs have been quite the little imperialists, invading a number of gender-related subreddits (like r/equality and r/egalitarian) and turning them essentially into r/mensrights-lite, which has effectively meant killing them. (The recently started r/masculism – an attempt to do Men’s Rights on Reddit without all the misogyny – doesn’t have a chance.)
Well, now the MRA invaders on Reddit seem to have set their sights on a much bigger target: the TwoXChromosomes subreddit. Yep, they’re trying to turn Reddit’s central hangout for the ladies into a boys club.
2XC– an explicitly female-oriented forum on a site (Reddit) heavily dominated by dudes — has always been a strange place. Though I am myself, obviously, a dude, I used to read it fairly regularly, finding it a welcome respite from all the “sammich” jokes and other idiot misogyny so pervasive elsewhere on Reddit. At the time, 2XC had a (completely unwarranted) reputation amongst the Reddit crowd as an evil place full of feminazi man-haters.
Then something started happening to 2XC. That thing was dudes. And not just any dudes – MRA dudes. Regulars on r/mensrights started linking to threads in 2XC and invading en masse, downvoting anything vaguely feminist and spewing forth their standard litanies of complaint. Some of these invaders decided to stay. And so, these sporadic raiding parties turned into a sort of occupation.
No, 2XC – despite the growing number of MRA residents, including a few female MRAs – has not turned into another r/mensrights. But at times, especially when the discussion turns to some MRA pet issue, the place looks a lot like dude central.
Case in point: this 2XC thread, expertly dissected by NauticalLittleNet in ShitRedditSays. The story: a woman posts a picture of her Halloween costume on Reddit and is bugged by a rude, creepy comment referring to her breasts (something that happens approximately ten zillion times a day on Reddit). So she posts the pic again to 2XC, hoping for sympathy. Instead, she’s treated to a barrage of comments mocking her for her alleged “persecution complex.” As NauticalLittleNet shows, the overwhelming majority of the obnoxious comments (all of which garnered numerous upvotes) were from dudes, many of them MRAs.
Naturally, this sort of thing – which happens pretty regularly on 2XC – has totally changed the dynamic of the subreddit from something that was sort of a haven for Reddit women to just another subreddit overflowing with obnoxious dudery.
As a Redditor called emmster noted recently in r/feminist, some women in 2XC have basically stopped posting anything vaguely feminist for fear of being jumped on by argumentative dudes:
I’ll be getting downvoted to Hell in the comments, but get PMs that are supportive from women who feel too afraid of the judgment and vitriol to jump in. I don’t love knowing there are women afraid to voice their opinions in a space that’s for women.
Honestly, I think the sustained r/MensRights invasion is what’s taking the largest toll. It’s like they can’t stand the idea that women have a space that’s active and popular, and they have to come ruin it.
And it doesn’t help that, as Donna_Juanita noted in the same discussion, some of the 2XC mods have essentially bent over backwards to accommodate the MRA invaders and to clamp down on feminists allegedly causing “drama.”
In ShitRedditSays, emmster offers a broader take on what’s happened to 2XC
Since young men are a majority on the site as a whole, and a pretty hefty number of them haven’t had the “There Are Places I Am Not Necessarily Welcome to Pontificate on My Opinion” realization, the space becomes less of a place for women, and more of a place to talk about women. Which is a pretty big distinction. And a tricky thing to keep from happening without raising the ire of the entitled, ignorant young dude contingent.
As a reddit friend of mine put it, it all started with the “Hey Ladies, What Do You Think of My Dick?” posts. When a bunch of guys started posting questions, trying to “understand women,” which of course is a flawed goal, because women, being people, have a variety of opinions and preferences, and cannot actually be understood as a group. Some of them were actually questioning preferences on penis size, hence the name of the phenomenon.
My hypothesis is that eventually, it will be nothing but men talking to men about what they think about women.
Not that there is a shortage of such spaces on Reddit, or in the world in general.
By the way, that picture above is not actually a picture of 2XC regulars. It’s a picture of the Huutajat Men’s Shouting Choir. Which is a real thing in the world. Here they are in action:
Whoa! Katz. You got me. That was sure clever. But, thankfully, I don’t put my real name on the internets…which is not only crazy…but dumb.
The answer, Maggie, is yes.
@ Kathleen – I use “lady issues” as a generic way to refer to men who are not just sexist, but appear to be in some way seriously damaged in terms of how they relate to women. So, not just standard sexism-lite that you find in lots of people, but the kind of sexism that, say. DKM or Slavey manifest.
Cassandra: Ah, I see. I thought the guys were telling you that you have lady issues. /me is tired and confused
She really is a disjointed mess, isn’t she? One sentence or clause doesn’t follow from the previous one in any conceivable way.
Nah, any guy that told me I had lady issues would just get the raised eyebrow of wtf are you on about.
I think I started using that term because I used to say certain men had mommy issues, and then realised that for some of them it wasn’t about their mother but about some other woman they were carrying a grudge towards that they were then applying to women as a whole. Highly applicable to the MRM, what with their emphasis on the idea that women have wronged men in highly specific ways.
as long as i understand the voices in my head, katz, i’m fine with that.
Aw, the lady in the ASCII has a very bored/disgruntled face. I hope you aren’t so mildly displeased when you have sex, mags? No wonder you’re propositioning manbooberz left and right. 🙁
Those sound like female issues; surely lady issues must be much more refined? Insufficient nose powder? Handkerchief is too lacy? 😀
Constant random babbling? Voices? Must resist joke… about why… Mags’ sex partners… like her best faced away from them… XD
(But seriously, with all mags’ talk in combination with the ASCII lady’s ‘meh’ face I just gave myself a sad about a troll’s sex life. :p)
I didn’t even see a face in her wall of text. Clearly I am insufficiently geeky to be engaging with this particular troll.
I just followed the link she gave for what it should have looked like. Just two people boning, but the woman seemed miffed. :p
Do you know she’s had sex? She has, you know. It’s very important that people realize this.
Wife took the house, the car, the dog.
Lost job over false accusation of sexual harassment.
Over 100,000$ in child support arrears.
Can’t get new job because of affirmative action.
We are the 99%!
Occupy 2XC!
lol
EWME: you falsely accused someone of sexual harrassment?
This OP proves how entitled, scary and controlling MRAs are. To be quite honest it’s one of the posts that manbooz covered that disturbs me the most because MRAs have gone to harrassing actual women rather than just posting misogynistic tripe on their own blogs.
I think 2XC and r/feminism needs to fight back. The reddit MRAs are just trying to intimidate them. Fight back and show them you aren’t scared of their bullshit. Its an abusive tactic isn’t it? trying to isolate the victim from their friends or families. Not very different from what they’re doing by trying to keep women away from other women who support each other. Talk about shaming tactics too. MRAs trying to shame 2XCs from posting anything remotely feminist.
It also smacks of little boys crashing little girl’s sleep overs or something. Meanwhile they go back to their treehouse with the “No Girls Allowed” sign.
Also read through this thread and NWO’s call for female slavery. You just fucking try Slavey. You just fucking try.
Ah…here’s a redditor that described it perfectly:
So it’s freedom of speech when these men say misogynistic or sexist statements about women, but it’s misandry when women imply that men are maybe not all perfect in every possible way ever.
I don’t see what the big issue is. Feminists are always free to create their own heavily-moderated or membership-only spaces where they can broadcast their lofty opinions all day with no fear of being questioned or challenged. In fact, I’m fairly sure such spaces exist already. Nothing but a feminist echo-chamber, occasionally interspersed with the happy panting of the emasculated male lapdogs who’ve been given the “honor” of being allowed inside (so long as they behave, of course). Try it today!
NWO has reveled his true colors…
Then again, I have a feeling that there’s probably more to be revealed from him (if he ever comes back, a la Candyman).
“I don’t see what the big issue is. Feminists are always free to create their own heavily-moderated or membership-only spaces where they can broadcast their lofty opinions all day with no fear of being questioned or challenged. In fact, I’m fairly sure such spaces exist already. Nothing but a feminist echo-chamber, occasionally interspersed with the happy panting of the emasculated male lapdogs who’ve been given the “honor” of being allowed inside (so long as they behave, of course). Try it today!”
Nice passive-aggressive non rebuttal, bro.
Really, dude, there are only so many ways one can say, “Hey, this is no big deal. You’re not REALLY HURT like I, the great penis-bearer, am. Stop whining.”
“Nothing but a feminist echo-chamber, occasionally interspersed with the happy panting of the emasculated male lapdogs who’ve been given the “honor” of being allowed inside (so long as they behave, of course). Try it today!”
Okay. let’s go through this logically yes? First accuse feminism of being an echo chamber. Then insult any men who identify as feminist or feminist allies as being ’emasculated male lapdogs’ simply because they don’t share your view.
Doesn’t that show exactly the same kind of intolerance of different opinions that you’re trying to claim feminists do by being an echo chamber? I mean the hypocrisy is right there. In one sentence.
They do. And so do MRAs. But MRAs at reddit are just crashing 2XC because they’re creepy assholes. As already stated, reddit is male dominated, so why do they have to crash the one subreddit that they know women specifically hang out at? could it be that they are…I dunno…creepy assholes only interested in silencing women and anyone else who disagrees with them?
I’d like to see what their reaction would be if 2XC or feminist reddits started started crashing MRA subbreddits or other ones that are explicitly male.
Note also that I doubt this is all about friendly debate either. Nothing wrong with debating with people in a rational and non-assholeish manner. This is something MRAs have shown themselves unable of doing again and again.
Nice passive-aggressive non rebuttal, bro.
How so? Nice meaningless retort.
Feminists are all “RARR, look me I’m a tough strong woman” one second, and delicate flowers crying about having their feelings hurt on the internet the next.
What is your proposal? That Reddit start censoring comments according to your moral code? You wanna run with the big boys, learn to deal with them. If you can’t, join Shakesville or some other feminist circle-jerk where they ban people for disagreeing with them.
I’d like to see what their reaction would be if 2XC or feminist reddits started started crashing MRA subbreddits or other ones that are explicitly male.
Actually that would be quite fun and I’d like to see it.
Also, Reddit already has an upvote/downvote system for rating comments so that people can make their opinions heard. It sounds like what you want is for nobody to have that right unless they’re on your side.
But most of us aren’t in favour of heavily-moderated or membership-only spaces. All my favourite online haunts going back a decade and a half have been, almost without exception, very lightly moderated (or unmoderated), open to all, and generally self-policed by the regulars who have earned the right to do this by their track record of making constructive contributions. Mutual respect, in other words.
I love the use of the word “emasculated”, as though standing up for genuine gender equality is somehow “unmasculine”. Or that seeking to have intelligent conversations with intelligent women is no more than “happy panting”. As with the meaningless insult “mangina”, it’s the kind of comment that says far more about the person making it than it does about anything I encounter in the real world.
I’m also not the slightest bit interested in echo chambers – they get very dull very quickly. Much though I like the vibe here, the threads are far more interesting when there’s some genuine boat-rocking going on. As demonstrated here.
Except this isn’t about debate. Did you even read the actual post? Its about deliberately silencing and using intimidation and insults. 2XC isn’t even explicitely a feminist subbreddit. These guys are just policing and harassing posters for disagreeing with THEM. Its also a space on a website that is overrun by guys. Now is this really about not being allowed to have an opinion? or just being butthurt that there’s a place the ladies can hang out that is relatively free from sammich jokes and other sexist stupidity seem everywhere else?
Also feminists do debate plenty. Feminists debate MRAs here on manboobz all the time. Feminists even debate other feminists. Feminist websites also deal with a lot of trolls who are just deliberately trying to stir shit up and derail topics, so they ban more freely. There’s having a differing opinion, and then there’s being a douche. This is the internet. Guess which type of commentor is more prevalent?
It would be interesting anyway.